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The avatars of Zoey Graystone (Alessandra Torresani) and Tamara Adama (Genevieve Buechner) after their combat in Episode 13.

The remaining story of CAPRICA should be novelized, since we are obviously not going to get the rest of the story on television. (Though perhaps there might be an animated series?) The story is worth telling, and I am very curious about what happens in the time gap between the end of Caprica Season One and the beginning of Battlestar.

CAPRICA was a great piece of science fiction because the show raised philosophical issues that have not been much discussed. One of those issues is the brain backup.

Torresani and Buechner battling one another in the virtual arena

In 1969, Phillip Bedford Robinson published his one and only novel, MASQUE OF A SAVAGE MANDARIN. In the book, a scientist, possibly a mad one, used beams of microwave energy which destroyed tissue at their point of intersection only, to destroy selected parts of the brains of his unwitting experimental subjects. His purpose was to discover the location of the self, that portion of the brain which, once removed, destroyed the uniqueness of the subject.

MASQUE OF A SAVAGE MANDARIN by Phillip Bedford Robinson

It seems obvious that soon it will be possible to perform a continuous brain backup wirelessly. What then is the status of the copy? The answer to that question is pretty much the same as the answer to the question posed by P.B. Robinson in his aforementioned novel. What part of you makes you you? The avatars of Zoey Graystone (Alessandra Torresani) and Tamara Adama (the Admiral’s sister, played by Genevieve Buechner) were not perfect copies, but what if they had been? If continuously updated, they would be the same person. Were the copy to be given a “skin-job”, it might be completely indistinguishable from the original other than by location.

The avatars of Zoey and Tamara in conversation

Cylons seemed to regard copies of themselves as an extension of their own bodies.

NOTE:The name Zoey is another form of Eve. The name Tamara means “tree of life”.

Then there is the issue of monotheism vs polytheism. In Western society, there is a widespread unquestioned assumption that monotheism is just better; that since nearly everyone in the West converted to Christianity or Islam or Judaism, polytheism must be a discredited philosophy. In fact, both notions are equally unsupported by evidence. CAPRICA went so far as to suggest that polytheism might have an advantage in that multiple Gods didn’t necessarily agree on everything, giving worshippers a bit more flexibility in their lives. It means the Gods aren’t always right, so questioning them doesn’t get one a one-way ticket to hell. In short, the followers of a pantheon of Gods are less likely to be maniacal about it.

SIDE NOTE:Genevieve Buechner’s IMDB page states that she was born “November 10th at 2:30am, 1991 in Edmonton during a terrible snow storm”. I took the trouble to look that up. According to almanac.com, the weather in Edmonton on that date was clear with light winds and no precipitation at all. The high temperature was 6 degrees C. Either the date or the weather anecdote is apparently incorrect.

In 2013, Torresani will be Emma in THE MOMENT, the second film by Director Jane Weinstock, which will also star Jennifer Jason Leigh (Maria in SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK). THE MOMENT describes itself as a “smart and sexy thriller about a war photographer Lee (Jennifer Jason Lee) who returns to Los Angeles to rehabilitate after narrowly escaping death. While in the hospital she meets John (Martin Henderson) and they develop a friendship that turns romantic. Then John goes missing. Eventually, Lee begins to suspect that she killed him, and, after further investigation, begins to suspect that her daughter killed him.”

I’ve been catching up on WAREHOUSE 13. While I found the episode with Alessandra Torresani a bit perplexing (somehow the Enola Gay binoculars managed to focus the heat of the Hiroshima blast without any radioactivity), but the episode after that was downright scientifically outrageous.

Alessandra Torresani and Allison Scagliotti - WAREHOUSE 13

See, people were developing a compulsion to devour everything in sight, including other people. They were developing other symptoms as well, such as a lowering of body temperature, pale skin that looked frostbitten.

The artifact that turned out to be the cause of all this was a jar from the Donner Party. Apparently, members of the Donner Party buried some of their money in jars. When someone put money in the jar again, it started making people extremely hungry and extremely cold (though not, for some reason, the guy who put the money in the jar).

Everyone in the episode who was affected by this artifact exhaled visible breath. Here’s my objection to that. The body temperature of the victim in the hospital went all the way down to 79 degrees Fahrenheit. At that temperature, one might well be near death, but one’s breath would not be visible if the external temperature was, say 75 degrees, like it would probably be in most buildings and homes. It would take a much larger temperature differential for that to happen.

The Donner Party members ate people who were already dead. There is no evidence that they ate live people, or killed people in order to eat them. I get that the artifact made folks very hungry, but, if they were imitating the Donner Party, they would have eaten people meat as a last resort.